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KANSAS— THE LECOMPTON CONSTITUTION- 



SPEECH 



OF 



HON. SCHUYLER COLFAX, 



OF I]SrDIA.lSrA., 



IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 



MARCH 30, 1858. 



i 



WASHINGTON, D. C. 

BUELL & BLANCHARD, PRINTERS. 

•^ 1858. 






fV 



SPEECH OF MR. COLFAX. 



Mr. Cbairman, -when the gentleman from Mis- 
sissippi [Mr Barksdale] was upon the floor, a 
little while ago, he put some ialerrogatories to 
me. He wished to kuow whether, if Kansas came 
here with a Constitution adopted by her people 
recognising Slavery, I would vote for her admis- 
sion under that Constitution ? I tell him now, 
emphatically, in advance of the speech which I 
have prepared, that I would not. "When the Mis- 
souri compromise, that time-honored compact, 
was repealed, I declared then, and I maintain it 
now, that by no vote of mine shall that repeal 
be carried out to what 1 feared was intended to 
be its result; and, therefore, I would refuse to 
admit Kansas as a slave State under any contin- 
gency. But all who oppose the ratification of 
the Lecompton Constitution do not agree on this 
point ; and i pledge myself to the gentleman from 
Mississippi, and other members trom the South 
upon this floor, that if I do not prove that there 
are sufiicient reasons, apart from Slavery, to de- 
mand its rejection, that the Lecompton Consti- 
tution is not republican in its form, that it does 
not speak the voice nor the will of the people of 
the Territory of Kansas, then T do not ask any 
man, of any party, to join me in voting against it. 

Nineteen years ago, the House of Representa- 
tives was convulsed with an exciting question, 
which threatened to prevent its organization, 
which hazarded even the continuance of the 
body itself, and which, afiecting as it did the 
political majority of this branch of the National 
Councils, and thus deciding which party should 
wield its power, baflied all attempts at its adjust- 
ment, until the strong mind of the " old man elo- 
quent " brought it from chaos to order once more. 
The incidents of that struggle must be fresh in 
the minds of every Representative within the 
sound of my voice ; for they were discussed at 
every fireside throughout this broad land. Five 
citizens of New Jersey presented themselves at 
the bar of the House, with commissions certify- 
ing their election as Representatives from that 
State, signed by its Chief Magistrate, and attest- 
ed by the broad seal of the State itself, the sym- 



bol of its sovereignty. These commissions were 
in the exact form required by law ; and the gen- 
tlemen thus commissioned demanded that they 
should be admitted to seats upon them during 
the organization of the body, and till the proper 
committee was appointed, before whom their 
contestants could present their claims. No other 
gentleman claimed to have legal commissions for 
the seats on this floor belonging to New Jersey, 
except one, whose right was uncontested ; but 
five other citizens presented certificates signed 
by an inferior officer of State and by two county 
clerks, asserting that the votes of two townships 
had been omitted in the executive computation, 
which, if included with the others, would have 
entitled them to the commissions given to their 
adversaries. To this it was replied, by the tnem- 
bers commissioned according to law, that gross 
frauds and irregularities existed in the returns of 
these townships, justifying their exclusion, as 
they would show at the proper time ; but that, 
meanwhile, they claimed the seats in this body 
to which their legal credentials, the signature of 
the Governor of their State, and its broad seal, 
entitled them. Such is a fair abstract of the 
points in controversy in the celebrated New Jer- 
sey case. The application which I shall make of 
them may already be apparent. 

Then, a sovereign State, by a fulfilment of all 
the formalities under which members are offi- 
cially accredited to this body, demanded, under 
the signature of its highest functionary, who, by 
law, had the right thus to speak for his State, 
that certain citizens thereof should be received 
to membership here. But the remaining mem- 
bers of the American Congress persistently, and 
to the end, despite the excitement which reigned 
here for two long weeks, resolved that they 
should not be admitted into their midst; but 
that, going behind these credentials, regular 
though they were on their face, they would, at 
all hazards, regardless of broad seals and guber- 
natorial signatures, ascertain what was the act- 
ual will of the people of New Jersey. And the 
political majority of this body, with these claim- 



ants excladed, being adverse to their views, their 
credentials, broad seal, executive i^ignature, and 
all were fiaally thrown back into their faces, and 
their uncertified contestants admitted in their 

Now the scene has changed. A Constitution 
is before us, not framed by the authority ot an 
enablino- act, the last Congress having failed to 
concur fn the passage of ons— not ratified by the 
people interested, at any election in which the 
right to choose, the simple power of saying yes 
or no, had been conceded— but framed by a Con- 
vention, elected under an imperfect, unfair, dis- 
franchising, and therefore swindling, census and 
registry, whose members represented, on an av- 
erac^e, exactly thirty votes apiece— who needed 
an army to protect them, while in session, from 
the indignation of the people, whose organic law 
they pretended to have been commissioned to 
luake— who themselves conceded all that 1 have 
charged against them, by submitting the Consti- 
tution only to those who were willing to vote 
for it and to swear besides to support it ; and 
whose iU-shapen and illegitimate offspring was 
repudiated as spurious by the overwhelming 
majority of ten thousand, at a fair, open election, 
authorized by the Governor and Legislature ot 
the Territory. And yet this fraudulent instru- 
ment, which no one here is hardy enough to 
claim as the voice of the majority of the people 
of the proposed State; which uo more speaks 
their wiP than does the Constitution ot conquered 
and enthralled France speak the will of the free- 
men of America; and which every one, here or 
elsewhere, knows full well is loathed and scorned 
and repudiated by the people, who are to be 
forced, with the bayonet, to live under it— this 
instrument is pressed upon us for ratification, on 
the technical ground that it emanated from a 
body which was nominally a Convention, repre- 
senting- the people of Kansas— that it has passed 
the ordeal of a pretended, one-sided, submis- 
sion ; and that we have, therefore, no right to go 
behind it, and inquire whether it is or is not the 
will of the people of that distant Territory. 

But, sir, I propose to hold up to these defend- 
ers of 'the Lecompton Constitution the emphatic 
utterances of the leaders, the very magnates, of 
their party upon this floor, during the discussion 
of the celebrated New Jersey case, to which I 
have referred; for, if it was right, if it was legal, 
if it was constitutional, to look behind the regular 
credentials of Representatives, and to decide, 
before admitting them to seats, whether those 
credentials actually spoke the voice of the people 
interested, then are gentlemen on the other side 
"estopped" (to use that favorite term of the 
Lecomptonites) from arguing that, when an in- 
strument of such vital, far-reaching importance, 
as a State Constitution, is before us for ratifica- 
tion, we may not also go behind even the fairest 
face that it may wear on the outside, to see if it 
is not a fraud and an outrage, a tyranny and a 
■wrong. 

My quotations are from the eighth volume of 
the Congressional Globe, session of 1839-'40. 

And, first, to all the gentlemen, from the Presi- 
dent down, who tell us so, complacently that the 



Lecompton Convention was a legal body, that 
their Constitution was a legal instrument, that 
its formation has all been technically regular, 
and that, therefore, we have no right to consider 
the nearly unanimous protest against it by the 
Territorial Legislature, and the overwhelming 
repudiation of it by the people themselves, I 
quote the outspoken language of Aaron Vander- 
poel, then the leader of the Democratic delega- 
tion here from the Empire State : 

'•These (said he) were lis views and answers to the 
technical poiiils— ihe mere quftiioiis ol' form— raised 
liere, lo precluile u? from looking at ti e real truth and jus- 
tice ot' llie casi " ♦ * * '-He implored the Hou.-e 
1101 to ackiiowledt'e itself 50 imjioUnl,or so mystified by 
form, as to be blindtd to svhslance, not lo promul^'aie to the 
world tlial the poieiu voice and will of the people of a 
sovereign Siaie, coii>tituiionally expressiv., could here 
\)6 praciicnliy/rvstraled and drowned, even lor a season, 
by thf yUifnl, squeakini; notes of form and ttchnieality" — 
Co,i(freisionol Globe, )). 9. 1639. 

That was the robust language in which a Dem- 
ocratic champion of that era spurned the argu- 
ment of ''form and technicality," and sought 
rather, as he declared in another part of his 
speech, to ascertain what was " the right and 
truth and justice and conscience of the case." 

Nor was this all. After him stood up the 
champion of the Democratic delegation from 
Ohio, who for years afterwards occupied a still 
higher seat in the other end of this Capitol, and 
who now presides as the Executive of the Golden 
State. Said John B. Weller : 



'• His okject was to do full and ample justice lo these 
men and lo the people of New Jersey ; ai\<l he was not 
to he tied don-n by Joims or stand upon tecknicalities. when 
lid iaw a grosis Iiaud pracfced upon liie iigh s of a peo- 
ple of a fovere-gii State." * * * - Wnenevtr he saw 
an elFon made to disiegard the expre-:sed tvill of the people, 
and trample upon their eoiistitul,oiii.l figlils. ne would be 
heard in ihtii defence. Ves, sir, as long us Gud gives me 
a voice to speak, tnat voice shall be heard i . vindicating 
the cause of an outraged and insulted jieople.'"— Ibid., p. 10. 

That voice, Mr. Chairman, is still spared to its 
owner; and as it spoke so emphatically, when 
merely a representation in a single Congress was 
at issue, I shall look to hear the solemn pledge 
which I have quoted most eloquently redeemed 
when John B. Weller, from the Pacific coast, 
lifts his voice in vindication of " the cause of an 
outraged and insulted people," and condemns, in 
the severe language which he so well knows 
how to use, and will use if he is faithful to his 
vow, the imposition of an odious Constitution 
upon a protesting and indignant community. 

Virginia, too, in that day, spoke in a^ difl'erent 
tone from her Representatives of 1358, but in 
striking accordance with the fearless declara- 
tions of her present Chief Magistrate. George 
C. Diomgoole — and I need not state here what 
rank he held among the statesmen of the Old 
Dominion — uttered language which was both 
truthful and prophetic. Listen to his words of 
warning : .^ 

"Ifvou establish the principle ihatiliecredeniials given 
hv the State authorities, no matter hon- fraudulent, no mat- 
ter how much at variance with the wili of the propU of tfie 
%tae h" expressed in the elections, shall ouiweign the 
popular^ voice, yov strike at tlte e.rislence of the 'Ucuve 
frlnchise, ana dest.oy .very pr.nc.ple that makes De- 
mocracy both lovely and practicable."— Page o9. 

And yet the successors of Dromgoole tell us 
that we cannot go behind the official certificate 



of John Calhoun, to ascertain whether the instru- 
ment he bears is or is not " at rariance with the 
will of the people." To them comes the stern 
condsranation from their eloquent predecessor, 
who, though dead, yet speaketh — " You strike at 
the existence of the elective franchise, and de- 
stroy every principle that makes Democracy both 
lovely and practicable." 

Time will not permit more copious quotations, 
but I must callt^ret another witness upon the 
stand, who "still lives'' in his own State of South 
Carolina. I allude to Francis W. Pickens, to 
whom the President not long since tendered one 
of his most important foreign missions, and who 
should therefore be good authority at the White 
House, as well as with his successors here. Mr. 
Pickens thus spoke in the same debate, says the 
Globe: 

"Heasserted Mfp8?t'fro/"(A« iihuse tstake what course 
it thouprbt proper, ll m'ght pass by the great seal of the 
State of New Jersey as insufficient evidence, hikI it was ac- 
countable to nobody but its own constituents." — Page IS 

And it cannot be denied that our obligation to 
admit Representatives here is more imperative 
than to admit new States. We must do the 
former; but the Constitution declares that we 
mai/ do the latter; and if we mat/, we certainly 
also 711(11/ not. A rightful Representative we are 
bound to admit without compromise or stipula- 
tion. Even a legal State we may admit or reject, 
as we see proper; and if we admit, can do it with 
or without conditions. 

But the warning of this eminent State-rights 
Democrat was still more impressive than Mr. 
Dromgoole's. Let it ring in the ears of those 
who now spurn the will of the majority, for its 
truthfulness has lost nothing by age: 

"He called," say^ the Congressional Globe, ''upon gen- 
tletnen lo bewase how ihey set at (((fiance the will of the 
people. when cU arlij expresstd. He did not desire lo preach 
revolutionary doctrine, but he was ready lo declare a great 
truth, that hi-ilory ■ivould 1 ear him out in, which was, thai 
the thunder of" Heaven mijiht sometimes be heard to roll 
in the indignant murmurs of an outraged but free people.'^ 
* * * '■ When the pe''p!e come to decide upon that 
question, they will tear off and trample in the dust the tech- 
nicaiities o^ special count y coicr t plead ing, which are thrown 
around us here for party purposes oro'herwise." — Ptige 13. 

I cannot dismiss this retrospect of what used 
to be Democratic argument in the oldeu time, 
without quoting an extract from one of the edi- 
torials of the Lecompton organ here, the Wash- 
ington Union, but a fortnight since, and the em- 
phatic and truthful reply to it from the lips of 
one of the Democratic champions of the debate 
of 1839. Says the Union, in an article showing 
the perfect indiiference it exhibited to what was 
the desire of the majority of the people of Kan- 
sas : 

■'TPe do not care whether the people like or dislike the Con- 
stitution. We are unwilling to take any more testimony. 
The ease has been closed ; the judgment entered up ; and 
the execution is now in the hands of the officers." 

Said John B. Weller, in the famous New Jer- 
sey debate, prophetically and justly characteri- 
zing such sentiments as these: 

"They [bis opponents] had always practiced upon the 
principle of the incapaciiy of the people to govf rii them- 
selves — that the minority should rule. That was the corner- 
stone OF Federalism.''— Page 10 

Ho\^ appropriately, too, does the language of 
Governer Weller reply to the bold avowal of a 



champion of the Lecompton Constitution in the 
other branch of Congress, [Mr. Hammond, of 
South Carolina,] who in that famous speech of 
his justified " the rule of the minority," as fol- 
lows : 

" If this was a minority Constitution, I do i ot know that 
that would be an objection to it. Consiiiulions are made 
for minorities. l'erh:i];)!t rtiinorities oiieht to have the right 
to make Constitutions, for they are administered by majori- 
ties." 

The brief hour allotted to me speeds so rapidly 
away, that I must hasten to another branch of the 
discussion. The stronghold, the very citadel of 
the supporters of the Lecompton Constitution is 
the argument that the Free State men have thrown 
away their opportunity to vindicate their princi- 
ples by failing to vote, and have therefore no right 
to complain. To every appeal for justice to Kan- 
sas — to every denunciation of this great wrong — 
the ready answer is, "Why did your friends fail 
to vote?" It is the key-note of every Lecomp- 
ton speech; it is the burden of the President's 
message ; it is the staple of those editorials, able 
but utterly sophistical and falLicious, with which 
the Government organ abounds ; it is the inspi- 
ration of its echoes all over the land. Cabinet 
officers ask, in their letters to political conclaves, 
" What right have those to complain who did 
not vote?" Custom-house officers join in the 
melody of this stereotyped tune ; and postmas- 
ters, who do not swell the chorus with cordial 
alacrity, find their tifliuial windpipes suddenly 
stopped, so that others may sit in their gates and 
proclaim to the people this fundamental argu- 
ment of Lecomptonism. The answer is plain, 
and I shall strive to make it thorough, although 
it will compel me to show that the President has 
either willfully, or, what is even worse, ignorant- 
ly, misstated historical facts. 

It is not needful to speak at much length of 
the first important election in the Territory of 
Kansas, on the 30th of March, 1855, when the 
people, under the organic act, were called upon 
to elect their first Legislature. It was an elec- 
tion of vital, commanding importance. On that 
body would devolve the enactment of an entire 
civil, criminal, and miscellaneous code of laws, 
which would embody the wishes and protect the 
interests of the pioneer settlers of the Territory. 
It would also be required to enact statutes gov- 
erning future elections, to appoint or provide for 
the election of the various county and township 
officers who were to assist in putting the ma- 
chinery of Government in operation ; to establish 
counties and county seats ; to select a site for the 
capital ; and, in a word, by representatives fairly 
chosen, to concentrate the popular w ill into a 
body, which, in every free land, spetiks with po- 
tential voice, because it springs from the hearts 
and votes of the people for whom it acts. Need 
I repeat the history of that organized invasion 
from a neighboring StatCj as large in numbers 
as the army with which Zachary Taylor achieved 
the crowning victory of his life at Buena Vista ; 
which, with all the equipage and paraphernalia 
of war, surrounded the various polls, drove the 
actual voters fiom their own ballot-boxes with 
violence and imprecations ; forced unsubservient 
election judges to carry out their will, or, with 



6 



pistols at their breasts, gave them fire minutes 
to die or to yield their places to their serviceable 
tools ; stuffed the ballot-boxes with nearly five 
thousand fraudulent, illegal, ruffian votes, elect- 
ing an entire Pro-Slavery Legislature, with the 
exception of a single Representative from a dis- 
tant precinct in the interior ; and then returned 
to their Missouri homes with drums beating and 
banners flying, exulting over this unparalleled 
outrage which they hailed as a brilliant victory? 
Though, at the risk of life, a few districts were 
contested, and new elections ordered, this bogus 
Legislature, when it met, promptly repudiated 
every one chosen at the second election, and in- 
stalled in their stead the persons elected by the 
invading army, thus appropriately " perfecting 
their organization." And this was the first step 
in the progress of afi'airs which has so fittingly 
culminated in the Lecompton juggle, which, as 
it did not have the people for its sponsor at the 
baptismal font, appears before us with John Cal- 
houn as its foster-father, and the President as 
its next friend, sticking closer than a brother. 

I pass over, for the present, the infamous code 
of laws which this sham Legislature enacted, to 
oppress and degrade the free people, whose legis- 
lative rights it had so shamelessly stolen; (con- 
fessed by eminent Democratic Senators to be a 
disgrace to the age ; and yet, which, enshrined 
and guarantied and sustained as they are in the 
Lecompton Constitution, do not render that in- 
strument less palatable to these very same gen- 
tlemen now ;) for I wish here specially to refer to 
the various elections which followed. Bold and 
reckless in their determination to maintain their 
ill-gotten power, this Territorial Legislature not 
.only withheld from the people for two and a half 
years the election of all their county, township, 
and election officers, filling all these posts from 
the pitiful minority, which, with the power of the 
General Government at their back, sustained this 
shameless usurpation ; but they fenced up the way 
to the ballot-boxes of future elections, by restric- 
tions purposely intended to exclude and disfran- 
chise the majority of the people of Kansas. Tax 
laws were passed, to defray the expenses, amongst 
other equally repulsive cl^rges, of the so-called 
militia, Avho roam over the Territory with Gov- 
ernment muskets, harassing the Free State set- 
tlers, destroying and stealing their property, com- 
mitting that last inexpressible outrage on their 
wives and daughters, sacking towns, and burning 
houses ; and they made the payment of these taxes 
an essential prerequisite forthe elective franchise. 
But, worse than this even, they added unconstitu- 
tional test oaths as another qualification, which 
they knew no Free State man, who was worthy 
to be called a man, wouli consent to take; and 
with these restrictions, and their own creatures 
presiding at the ballot-boxes, they felt that they 
were safe. Sir, these disgraceful facts, which 
banished from the polls the liberty-loving people 
of Kansas, cannot be unknown to the President ; 
and yet, when speaking of the election of Octo- 
ber, 185G,at which he claims that the people, at 
the polls, decided in favor of a Constitutional 
Convention, he coolly says : 



"It is true that at this election the enemies of the 
Territorial Government did not vote, because they were 
then engaged at Topeka," &c. — Congrtssional Globe edi- 
tion,p.5. 

It is eminently fitting that the first point in fa- 
vor of the legality and regularity of the Lecomp- 
ton Constitution, which is cited by the President, 
should be a meager vote at ballot-boxes not pre- 
sided over by impartial judges chosen by the 
people, but guarded by the tools of the usurpa- 
tion, and hedged in by test oaftis, which even 
the usurping despot of France has not yet im- 
posed on the voters of his empire. 

The Convention having been thus called, the 
usurping Legislature, yet unwilling to concede the 
people a fair, honest, open ballot-box, though 
compelled, as they were that winter, to repeal 
the test oath, by the odium which it had justly 
incurred, looked around for some new plan to 
prevent a Free State majority, and at last devised 
the registry, which should limit the franchise at 
the election of delegates to those who were 
placed upon it, and which is well known in 
Kansas history as the census swindle. No other 
State Constitution had ever thus been framed — 
utterly disfranchising, as this enactment did, 
every voter whom hostile officers, not elected by 
the people, either neglected or refused to enroll. 
Besides the nineteen counties whose people were 
all ignored, and the facts in regard to which are 
now so well known to the public, the registry in 
the other counties shows that there was a method 
in their madness and wickedness. In the flourish- 
ing town of Topeka, not a soul was enrolled. 
In Leavenworth, all the workmen in the Pro- 
Slavery printing office were duly included in the 
registry, while not a single one in the Free State 
printingf office was discoverable by the deputy 
sheriff. Henry J. Adams, the mayor of Leaven- 
worth itself, was omitted. So was Marcus J. 
Parrott, who, from bis triumphant election here 
at the first fair election ever held in Kansas, the 
succeeding October, must have been known even 
then to some few citizens of the Territory, though 
the bogus officer was oblivious to his existence. 
Nay, more: this very oflicial failed to find out 
that such a man lived in Leavenworth as his own 
landlord. Doctor Morris, who was therefore dis- 
franchised by not being on his sacred registry, 
because he happened to prefer Freedom to Sla- 
very. And Judge Johnson, of Kansas, a most 
unimpeachable witness, declares, that of the nine 
thousand persons purported to be registered, 
from four to five thousand were citizens of Mis- 
souri, whose names were included expressly to be 
used in case they were needed at the ballot-box. 
And this census swindle is most appropriately 
another step in the fraudulent formation of this 
Lecompton Constitution — of which the President, 
however, says in his message: 

" It is nwpossiBLE that any people could have proceeded 
with MORE KEGULAliiTY in the I'ormHlion ol' a (Jonstilution 
than the people of Kansas have done." — Vage 4. 

This census having been thus completed, with 
half the counties omitted, the registry in the 
others wilfully and interuionally one-sided and 
fraudulent, and thousands of Missourians added 
to it to swell its aggregate, and to make success 
certain in every possible contingency, the elec- 



tion of delegates was the next act in the drama. 
And here I quote, from the President's message, 
what he says of this election, as I am compelled 
to make a direct issue with him upon the facts 
involved, and shall produce my testimony to dis- 
prove his allegations. Says the President : 

"The enemies of ihe Territorial Government determin- 
eJ still to resist the authority of Congress. They refused 
to vote for delegates to the Convention; not because, from 
circumstances which I need not detail, (Aere was an otnis- 
sion to register the co7nparatwely few i-o/ers who were in- 
habitants of certain counties of Kansas in the early 
spring of 1?57; but because they had predetermined, at all 
hazards, to adhere to their revolutionary organization, and 
defeat the establishment of any other Constitution than 
that which they had framed at Topeka. The election 
■was therefor-' suffered to pass by default ; but of this re- 
sult the qualifiifd electors, who refused to vote, can never 
justly complain.'" — Page 5. 

I could answer this by saying that, as all 
three sessions of the Thirty-fourth Congress had 
expired, without the passage of any of the acts 
proposed in either House, to authorize the form- 
ation of a State Constitution, those who there- 
upon declined to participate in the unauthorized 
action of the Territorial Legislature for that pur- 
pose, reaWj . maintained, instead of resisting, "the 
authority of Congress." But I put the issue with 
the President on even higher grounds, on the 
very facts alleged in his statement. 

On the 24th of April last. Acting Governor 
Stanton, within a few days after his arrival in 
Kansas, having heard as yet only the apocryphal 
statements of the enslavers of that Territory, the 
leaders of that minority which basked in the 
sunshine of Presidential favor, proceeded to Law- 
rence, and there, at the request of its citizens, 
made a public address. He concedes now, with 
a frankness that does him honor, that he had 
not, for several months after this time, any con- 
ception of the enormity of the minority, who 
having, by fraud and violence, obtained posses- 
sion of the forms of law, used them systematically 
for still further injustice to the rights of the peo- 
ple. But, like a bold and brave man, as he is, 
he frankly told the citizens of Lawrence that he 
had come to Kansas determined to enforce the 
Territorial laws. He was met by equally res- 
olute replies, that while they would submit, as 
they always did, to any oppression by the offi- 
cers or soldiers of the United States Government, 
no power on earth could induce or compel them 
to yield allegiance to a felon code, imposed on 
them by a foreign invasion, which had driven 
them from their own ballot-boxes with contumely 
and violence, and then used the power they had 
stolen to oppress and degrade those they had 
robbed. But having appealed to them to redress 
their grievances, if they had any, at the polls, he 
was surprised to find the Free State leaders will- 
ing and even anxious to do so, if a fair and hon- 
est election was guarantied. He asked them to 
put their proffer in writing, and the next day it 
was done. Although this was extensively pub- 
lished in the newspaper press of the day, and I 
have one here with me to prove this fact, and to 
show that the proffer was not kept a secret, I 
prefer to read it from an attested manuscript 
copy, furnished me by Governor Robinson, who 
heads its list of signatures : 



Lawrence, Aprils, 1857. 
Deab Sir: In your address to the people of Lawrence, 
last evening, we understood you to say, in substance, that 
you would enforce the laws enacted by a Legislature 
elected by the people of an adjoining Slate, ur.til they 
shouiti be repealed; also, if the laws sre ui, just or dis- 
tasteful, our remedy is the ballot-box. History has indel- 
ibly recorded the fact, which General McLean admitted 
in our presence last evening, that the ballot-box was 
taken i"rom tlie people of Kansas Territory on the 30th 
March, 1S55, and has not to this day been returned. From 
that time until the present, the people have had no voice 
whatever in making laws, or in selecting off cers to ad- 
minister them, notwithstanding the world-wide declara- 
tion, by the Administration at Washington and its friends 
elsewhere, that the people shoull be perfectly free to reg- 
ulate their own institutions in their own way, subject 
only to the Constitution of the United Slates. 

We are now invited to participate in an election of 
delegates to a Convention, to meet September next, to 
frame a Constitution and State Government. We are told 
that the election law is a good one; that the voice of the 
actual settlers can be heard at the polls, and that justice 
will be meted out to all panics. We regret that the past 
conduct of the officers to superintend this election has not 
been such as to permit us to believe that they will secure 
a fair vole of the people, and the fact that many well- 
known citizens in Kansas are omitted from the registry 
list, and that as well-known citizens ajid residents of 
Missouri are registered, is conclusive proof to us that a 
fair election is not intended and will not be permitted by 
the officers who have thus far had the matter in charge. 
But if a fair election is intended, notwithstanding the body 
of men calling it was not elected by the people of Kan- 
sas, andwiotwithstanding the people have already framed 
a Constitution of which a large majority approve, we, the 
undersigned, are willing to overlook the past, and go into 
the election of delegates to a Constitutional Convention, 
should a Convention of the people of Kansas convene, if 
the following course be adopted by the efficers of the 
election, 'o v.'it : 

First. Two persons shall be selected in each township 
or district, to correct the registry list, one by the Pro-Sla- 
very and one by the Free State party, who shall proceed 
in company to take the census and register all legal vo- 
ters, and the probate judges shall correct the first lists, 
and the apportionment of delegates shall be made accord- 
ing to the returns thus made. 

Second. Four judges of election shall be selected for 
each voting precinct, two of the Pro- Slavery and two of 
the Free State party, and the names of three of said 
judges shall be required to have a certificate of election 
to entitle a person to a seat in the Convention, 

We think that your Excellency will at once perceive 
that some such course must be pursued to correct the 
list, or no correction can be made. We are informed by 
creditable reports that, in some districts, nonresidents, lo 
the number of thousands, have already been registered, 
while actual Free State settlers have been refused; and 
how else can the lists be corrected, than by a retaking 
of the census by some person or persons who have regard 
for an oath? Tesiimony of a negative character can 
avail nothing; and to obtain positive tesiimony with ref- 
erence to the residence of those enlisted from another 
Slate, would be impossible in the short time remaining 
before the election 

That you have the power to take any course you may 
think proper to secure o fair election, we have no doubt. 
It is not material that the letter of the law calling the 
election should be strictly followed ; indeed, no law at all 
is requisite, so that the will of a majority of the people can 
be ascertained. Congress can give legality to a Consli- 
tulion formed in accordance wiih a previous Territorial 
a^t or without one; and we trust your Excellency will 
restore 'he ballot-box to the people of Kansas in all its 
purity, at any risk of informality on minor and non-esseii- 
lial provisions of the election regulations. 
Very respectfully, your obedient servants, 

C. Robinson. G. W. Smith. 

William Hutchinson. George F. Earle. 

Ed. Clark. Joseph Crackliu. 

Ephraim Nute, jun. G.Jenkins. 

John Hutchinson. S. S Emory. 

G. C. Brackett. J. H. Wakefie.'d. 

E. D. Ladd. G. A. Finley. 

C. A.Babcock. 
Hon. F. P. Stanton, Acting Governor, Kansaj Territory. 
A true copy. Auest : S. C. Smith. 



8 



"The people haviiifr, by n direct vote, ordered the call- 
ing of a Conveiilim lo form a Coiisliiution. the Abolition 
agitators and di^tiirl)ers refused to voU at the election of 
membeis of said Convention, and then, after an obstinate 
refusal, raised an oulcry that the Convention was unjust- 
ly constituted, inasmuch as they were not represented 
lUcrein."— Se«a<« Report, p. 14. 



I Bubmit this frank and manly document as 
proof beyond all contradiction that the charge of 
the President, reiterated in the report of the Sen- 
ate's Territorial Committee, is 7ioi in accordance 
with the fects as they exist. All that the lead- 
ing Free State men asked or desired was a per- 
fect registry and an honest election. Though 
the majority of the people, they claimed only 
equal rights with their opponents — one man of 
each party to fill up the registry, and make the 
census complete. The probate judge, the very 
officer and the only one authorized by the law to 
correct the census, to add to it the names of the 
citizens thus mutually ascertained by a chosen 
representative of the two contending parties in 
each precinct, and each party to have one-half 
of the election judges. What could have been 
fairer, if an honest, unfettered expression of all 
the legal voters of Kansas was really desired ? 
And even if the requirement in the election law 
for three election judges forbade their equal di- 
vision, and the addition of one to each election 
board was considered impracticable, the com- 
pletion and filling up of the registry, which was 
to be the test of the elective franchise, was per- 
fectly attainable, for the election was not to be 
held for fifty-three days afterwards. , 

It is well known in Kansas that Gov. Stanton 
was struck, as he might well have been, with the 
fairness and justice of this profifer, and promised 
them a reply in writing. This, to use the lan- 
guage of the President in arguing this very 
point, " was the propitious moment for settling 
all difficulties in Kansas." But when Gov. Stanton 
returned to Lecompton, and consulted with the 
men there who had taken such pains thus far to 
stifle the honest expression of the popular will 
so &s to perpetuate their ill-gotten power, they 
insisted on its refusal ; and, five days afterwards, 
he replied in an argumentative letter, declining 
to interpose his authority, without which the 
plan had no prospect of accomplishment. And, 
a month later, the apportionment was made ; 
that apportionment which Gov. Stanton has so 
frankly declared he would have utterly re- 
fused to proclaim, if he had then known what he 
has since learned, the base plot of the engineers 
of this gigantic fraud. I do not allude to this 
refusal to arraign the conduct of Gov. Stanton, 
much as it is to be regretted, but to show that 
it was the furthest thing possible from the wish 
of the enslavers of Kansas, who were then his 
only counsellors, to allow even a single fair op- 
portunity of voting to be given, in the whole pro- 
cession of events which culminated in the Le- 
compton Constitution. And in full view of this 
fact, is it not extraordinary, to say the least, that 
a committee in the other end of the Capitol, 
who knew of this correspondence, as they quoted 
copiously from Gov. Stanton's repli/ to this prof- 
fer, should use the following language afterwards 
in their report : 



And this same idea is even more oflfensively 
repeated in a subsequent part of the report : 



So. ao^ain, when the members of the Convention were 
elected, the AboUtionisti shrunk from the contest. So, also, 
when the question came up, whether tnere should or should 
not be a clause retaint d in the Constitution allowing Sla- 
very to be established in Kansas, they again shrunk from 
the contest, conscious of their weakness, or f{om sinister 
political design."— Senate Report,^. 16. 

The election was held, but during its penden- 
cy Democratic meetings resolved and re-resolved, 
and promised over and over again, that the Con- 
stitution, when formed, should be submitted for 
ratification or rejection to a full vote of the peo- 
ple. Numerous candidates for delegates, inclu- 
ding the man who walks the streets of this city 
with the entire and despotic power in his own 
hands, of deciding who shall be the Governor, 
State officers, and Legislature, of the new State 
of Kansas, solemnly pledged themselves to the 
same action, and declared that the rumored in- 
tention to withhold the Constitution from the 
popular verdict was all a Republican lie. Gov. 
Walker and Gov. Stanton traversed the Territo- 
ry, reiterating the pledge that the people should 
have the opportunity of deciding for or against 
the organic law under which they were to live, 
before it should be submitted to Congress. And 
the following extract from the instructions of the 
Administration to Gov. Walker was presented to 
the people of Kansas, as a voucher more solemn 
and sacred than any other which could possibly 
be given : 

'• When such Constitution shall be submitted to the peo- 
ple of the Territory, ihey must be protected in the exer- 
cise of their right ofvotins for or against that instrument, 
and the fair expression of the popular will must not be in- 
terrupted by fraud or violence." 

I look in vain in the President's Lecompton 
message for this most important point in the his- 
tory, which he has written for our instruction, of 
the Constitution which he presses upon us for 
adoption. But the people, who regard Presiden- 
tial pledges as of too much importance and so- 
lemnity to be cast aside, like actors' robes, after 
they have accomplished their purpose, find in 
this, which I have quoted, the following points, 
which Presidents, Senators, Representatives, or 
organs, cannot write down : 

1. That on March 30, 1857, the President of 
the United States regarded a submission of the 
Constitution to a popular vote as a " right." 

2. That this "right" extended to "voting fob 

Ott AGAINST THAT INSTRUMENT." 

3. That to "interrupt" "the fair expression 
of the popular will " is nothing less than " fraud." 

I appeal, therefore, from the Lecompton mes- 
sage to the Presidential instructions to his Exec- 
utive in Kansas — from the James Buchanan of 
March, 1858, to the James Buchanan of March, 
1857; and I have no fears of the popular verdict 
on that appeal. 

I pass rapidly over the subsequent history. 
The delegates, elected by an aggregate vote not 
equal to a common county in all, assemble at 
Lecompton, and adjourn over till after the elec- 
tion of October, 1857. For the first time in 
Kansas, a fair election was held. The Free State 
men swept the field; and though the old game 
of fraud was played to the last, by forged re- 



9 



, turns, which, if admitted, would have continued 
the legislative power of the' Territory in the 
hands of the reckless men whom the people by 

• an overwhelming vote had repudiated, the Con- 
vention reassembled with a full and unmistakable 
knowledge of the actual will of the people whom 
they pretended to represent. I intend to speak 
hereafter of some of the details of the instru- 
ment they framed; but I wish to devote this 
part of my remarks to the history of the elec- 
tions by virtue of which this Coastitution is now 
here, and which the President eulogizes as so 
fairly conducted that it would be impossible for 
the people to have proceeded more regularly in 
this work. Instead of either framing their Con- 
stitution in accordance with the known will of 
the people who were to live under it, or submit- 
ting it when framed to their adoption or rejection, 
they outraged their own pledges — the pledges of 
the Executive officers in Kansas, which they 
heard made to the people without dissent — and 
the pledges of the President, by submitting it 
'■'■for the Constitution with Slavery," or "/or the 
Constitution with no Slavery ; " and fettering 
even this restricted choice by the extraordinary 
provision that no one should be allowed to vote 
at all, unless he was willing to take an oath to 
support the yet unadopted Constitution, under 
the pains and penalties of perjury. I must quote 
here again from the President: 

'•The question of Slavery wag submitted lo an ileclion 
of the people of Kansas, on the 31-t December last, in 
obedience to the mandate of the Constitution. Ht re again 
a /afrop/iortMn*^!/ was presented to <ii<3 adherents of the 
Topeka Constitution, if they were the majority, to decide 
this exciting question 'in their own way,' and thus re- 
store peace to the distracted Territory; but they again 
refused to exercise their right of popular sovereignty, 
and again suffered the election to pass by default," * * 
"They did not think proper to submit the whole of this 
Constitution to a popular vote; but they did submit the 
question whether Kansas should be a free or a slave Slate 
lo the people." 

The President must have read the Lecompton 
Constitution, and have seen there that even if the 
"Constitution with wo Slavery" was adopted, it 
was still expressly enacted in the schedule, that, 
notwithstanding that vote, "the right ot property 
in slaves now in this Territory shall in no manner 
be interfered with " — (Section seven of schedule ; ) 
and again, in section fourteen of schedule, that 
whatever amendments may hereafter be adopted 
to the Constitution, " no alteration shall ever be 
made to affect the rights of property in the own- 
ership of slaves." And yet, though he argues, 
with apparent gratification, that "Kansas is, at 
this moment, as much a slave State as Georgia 
or South Carolina," he declares (even in full 
view of these provisions in the Kansas Consti- 
tution, which every voter who approached '^he 
ballot-box was compelled to ratify if he voted at 
all, and swear to support besides) that the Con- 
vention fairly submitted to the people the ques- 
tion whether Kansas should be a free or a slave 
State. 

An important point must not be omitted in 
this rapid review: that no instance exists, during 
our entire history as- a nation, that I can find by 
the most diligent search, where a special clause 
of a new Constitution was submitted to a popu- 



lar vote, that the whole instrument was not also 
submitted to the same ordeal at the same time. 
And the reason is, that nowhere else in this 
whole land have the framers of a Constitution 
sought or desired to impose it upon a people, 
against their well-known hatred and detestation 
of its provisions. Where Constitutions, in pre- 
vious generations, have not been submitted to 
the people, it has been where the assent to their 
principles on the part of the people has been well 
known and undeniable. This Lecompton fraud 
is, I rejoice to say, the first instance of the kind 
in our country, and I trust that it will be so 
utterly repudiated that it will be the last, ily 
views in regard to the extension of Slavery are 
known to my fellow-members, And need not be 
repeated; for this is not a question whether Af- 
ricans are to be slaves, but whether freemen, of 
your own race and color, are to be made the serfs 
of the Lecompton usurpers ; whether, in a word, 
the majority of the people of Kansas have any 
rights that Congress is bound to respect. 

Resuming this almost completed history of 
Kansas elections, I must quote a remarkable 
admission of the President, where he is speaking 
of the future power of the people to amend the 
Constitution — an admission which destroys his 
whole case, utterly and irretrievably : 

''The will of the majority is supreme and irresistible, 
when expressed in an orderly and lawful manner. They 
can make and unmake Constitu'ioiis at pleasure. It would 
he absurd lo tay that they can impose fetters upon their 
own power which they Laiinot afterwards remove." — L&- 
comTpU>n Message, p. 7, 

The President's whole argument previous to 
this admission was, that the Legislature, having 
passed an act calling a Constitutional Conven- 
tion, had thereby surrendered to that body all 
power over the instrument they were commis- 
sioned to make ; but I meet him on this new 
ground that he has taken, and ask, in his own 
language, if it is not " absurd to say that they 
can impose fetters upon their own power which 
they cannot afterwards remove ? " What are 
the facts ? Be/ore any vote was taken upon the 
Constitution — before, by its own terms, it had 
gone into effect, or possessed the slightest vital- 
ity — for, by section sixteen of the schedule, it 
was "to be in force from and after its ratifica- 
tion by the people, as hereinbefore provided " — 
the same legislative authority which called it 
into existence, convened and ordered a vote of 
the people for or against its adoption ; and, on 
the 4th of January, a majority of ten thousand of 
the people of Kansas branded it with an indig- 
nant repudiation. If their previous action, there- 
fore, had been construed to impose any "fetters" 
upon the people, their action before the Conven- 
tion's election on the 21st of December removed 
these fetters, and enabled the people to speak 
their will unmistakably. 

But, again; if a Legislature of the people, after 
a Constitution has been adopted, ratified, and 
confirmed, both at home and by Congress and 
the Executive, have then the power to proceed, 
contrary to the terms of the instrument itself, in 
the necessary steps to amend or overthrow it, as 
the President argues "the Legislature already 
elected may, at its very first session," proceed to 



I 



10 



do, is it not extraordinary that they have not this 
same power before it has gone into force at all ? 
Is not this position, to use the President's expres- 
sive language, "absurd?" 

But I have still another point to make, on this 
head, which will leave the President and his 
friends no room to escape from the position he 
has taken above. They may say that the lan- 
guage is, that " the will of the majority " must be 
"expressed in an orderly and lawful manner;" 
and that the election of the 4th of January does 
not comply with this condition. The President, 
in his message, though refusing, as he did also 
in his instructions to Governor Denver, to recog- 
nise its result as material, says, "it was peace- 
ably conducted, under my instructions." But still 
more conclusive is the following extract from the 
instructions to Governor Denver, which were 
dated December 11, 1857, ten days before there 
had been any voting on the Constitution at all, 
in full view of the fact that a bill would proba- 
bly be passed by the Legislature, authorizing the 
people to vote for or against it. Speaking of the 
Governor's duty, the instructions say : 

"It extends, of course, to the proteetion of all citizens 
in the exercise of their just rights, and applies fo one leaal 
election as lee'l as to another. The Territorial Le§rislature 
doubtless convened on the 7th instant, and while it re- 
mains in session its members are eniiiled to he secure 
and free in their deliberations. lis rightful action must 
also be respented. Should it authorize an election by the 
people for any purpose, this election should be held without 
interruption, no less than those authorized by ihe Convention. 
While the peace of the Territory is preserved, and the 
freedom of election is secure, there need be no fear of 
disastrous consequences." • # * "From whatever 
quarter it is attempted to interfere by violence wuh the 
elections authorized by the Constiiuiional Convention, c?- 
which may be authorized by the Legislature, the attempt 
must be resisted, and the security of the elections main- 
tained." 

Whatever, therefore, the President may argue 
as to the inefficacy of that vote, these instruc- 
tions recognise it as a " legal election," as a 
"just right" of the people, as "rightful action 
by the Legislature," and as entitled to precisely 
the same protection as the elections authorized 
by the Convention. And this being conceded by 
the President, I contend that that election is de- 
cisive of "the will of the majority;" that that 
will has been " expressed in an orderly and law- 
ful manner;" that the people, whom the Presi- 
dent says "can make or unmake Constitutions at 
pleasure," have decidedly unmade this one, at an 
election " peaceably conducted under the Pres- 
ident's instructions;" and that if they ever did 
"impose fetters upon their own power," by au- 
thorizing this Convention to meet, it is "absurd" 
to say that they " cannot afterwards remove " 
them, as they have done so decisively by repu- 
diating the Convention's work. 

I must, before passing to another point, expose 
the absolute and emphatic contradiction, on a 
vital point, of the two champions iir Congress of 
this Lecompton Constitution. I allude to the 
atithors of the Senatorial report from the Com- 

Sittee on Territories, and the yet undelivered 
ouse report from the Select Kansas Committee, 
as published by its author, Mr. Stephens, of 
Georgia, in the Union. It is in regard to the 
right and power of the Legislature calling the 



Says Mr. Stephens, 
of Georgia, in his re- 
port from the Select 
Committee of the House: 

"The Legislature did call 
a Convention. They could 
have required them to sub- 
mit their vote to the people. 
This was a matter for their 
own diserelirjn; but this 
they did not do." 



Convention, to restrict its authority, or to stipu- 
late, in advance, that their work should be sub- 
mitted to the popular vote. 

Says Senator Green, 
of Missouri, in his re- 
port, speaking of the 
failure to require the 
submission of the Con- 
stitution : 

"If the Legislature could 
direct ihe Convention what 
ihey should do on one sub- 
ject, it might with equal pro- 
priety have given com- 
mands on all other subjects. 
This would have been a fla- 
grant vioUtion of all rules 
of right and of justice to the 
people." 

I would respectfully suggest that, before these 
champions of Convention omnipotence go before 
the people on this issue, they should revise their 
reports so as to make them agree instead of an- 
tagonizing on this essential question ; jnd settle 
the point, whether a condition that a Constitu- 
tion should be submitted to the people who are 
to live under it, would or would not be "a fla- 
grant violation of all rules of right and of 
justice to the people." 

The next question which confronts us in the 
discussion of this question is, whether the Con- 
stitution is "republican in form." The report of 
the Senate's Committee on Territories, on page 
10, after discussing the Slavery clause, says : 

"No real or valid exception can be taken to any other 
part of the Constitution. On this subject. President 
Buchanan has well said, in his message : 

" 'In fact, the general provisions of our recent State 
Constitutions, after an experience of eighty years, are 
so similar and so excellent, that it would be difficult to go 
far wrong at the present day in framing anew Constitu- 
tion.'" 

Yes, Mr. Buchanan ; but if there is one pro- 
vision more than another, in our recent State 
Constitutions, in which there has been a univer- 
sal concurrence of sentiment, it has been in their 
submission to the people. All parties, all sec- 
tions, all States, have agreed upon this " ex- 
cellent " provision. Though in the earlier days 
of the Republic, when the public sentiment was 
unequivocal. State Constitutions were allowed to 
go into operation by general consent and uni- 
versal acquiescence, yet, for over twenty years, 
no Constitution has gone into operation, in any 
new State or old, without having been submit- 
ted to the ordeal of a popular ratification or re- 
jection. This forms the only exception, during 
the present generation ; and the following rea- 
son, very frankly given by the President, on page 
4 of- his Lecompton message, does not strike me 
as either "excellent" or truly Democratic : 

" Had the whole Lecompton Constitution been submit' 
ted to the people, the adherents of this [Topeka] organ- 
i/.auon would doubtless have voted against it." 

But, sir, besides the fact that the Constitution 
is not really republican, because it does not rep- 
resent the actual and well-knovrn will of the 
people, I dissent from the Senatorial report, in 
its assumption that " no real or valid exception 
can be taken to any other part of the Constitu- 



11 



tion," besides its provisions in favor of perpetual ' 
and irrepealable Slavery. 

And first, the Constitution flatly contradicts 
itself on a most essential point. In section one, i 
of article seven, it is declared that " the right of 1 
property is before and higher than any constitu- 
tional sanction " — a new higher law — while sec- 
tion two, article twelve, authorizes even a soul- ; 
less corporation to take and pay for private | 
property, even against the consent of the owner, 
if a jury, which is usually rather inferior in power i 
to a Constitution, only consents. 

And secondly, these sagacious Constitution- 
makers, in their deep interest for the people, 
enact, in section five of article twelve, that no 
bank bill shall go into force unless it is submit- 
ted to a vote of the people, after its passage by 
the Legislature, and shall be approved by a ma- 
jority of the electors voting at such elections, 
while they themselves refuse to submit their own 
work, binding up though it does all the institu- 
tions, the legislation, and the interests of the 
people, to this test, which they command here- 
after, on a single question. Such gross and 
shameless inconsistency cannot receive the sanc- 
tion of my vote. To be consistent with their 
idea of a "fair submission," they should have 
provided that the Legislature should order a vote 
" for banks with branches," and "for banks with- 
out branches," and exclude all votes of anti-bank 
men by requiring the voters to swear fealty to 
the banks before they could be allowed to choose 
between the two. 

And thirdly, a single word in this Constitution 
indicates the animus of its framers. The Consti- 
tution of the United States allows the writ of 
habeas corpus to be suspended only " in cases of 
rebellion or invasion;" but the Kansas Consti- 
tution (section fourteen, bill of rights) authorizes 
it to be suspended " in cases of rebellion, insur- 
rection, or invasion." The unconstitutional addi- 
tion of that single word, " ixscrrection," so 
capable of latitudinous construction, becomes 
doubly significant when we remember what these 
same men have considered "insurrections" du- 
ring the past four years. And section twelve 
allows them also to dispense with grand juries 
or impeachments, even in capital or infamous 
offences, " in cases of rebellion, insurrection, or 
invasion." With the habeas corpus, indictments, 
and impeachments, all brushed aside, they can 
indeed be " a law unto themselves," and become 
the irresponsible and unrestricted Robespierres 
of the State. 

And fourthly, in full view of the fact that, be- 
fore the Constitution was framed, or even fairly 
commenced, the people, by a vote six times 
greater than that by which the delegates had 
been chosen, had elected a Legislature, which, 
by the act of Congress, approved by the Presi- 
dent, had been clothed with full power of legis- 
lation on all rightful subjects, they attempted to 
legislate through their Constitution, even before 
its ratification by Congress, and to trammel and 
restrict the legal power and authority of a legis- 
lative body, whose commissions sprang from as 
high an authority, at least, as theirs. They de- 
clare, in section two of the schedule, that all 



laws then in force shall continue in full force 
until the State Legislature, to be elected under 
the Constitution, should assemble. Such arro- 
gance is in fit unison with the conduct of the 
reckless men who framed this instrument in 
open, undisguised contempt of the known will of^ 
Kansas, and who ask us to force it down the 
throats of the people they seek to punish by its 
adoption. But there is an object in this, and it 
was to prevent the repeal or amendment of that 
atrocious code which for years this usurpation 
had been vainly striving to enforce on the people 
of Kansas. Some of its features 1 quote from a 
speech I had the honor of delivering during the 
last Congress ; and those who vote to ratify this 
rejected Constitution, give their willing suffrages 
to also maintain and uphold those laws which 
the Constitution so jealously preserves from 
amendment or repeal : 

"I will now invite your alfention to a contrast in the 
penal code of this Territory, singular in its character, to 
say the very least. Section five of the act punishinsr 
offences ags.inst slave property, page 604, enacts as fol- 
lows: 

'• ' If any peri'on shall aid or assist in entic insr^ decoyinar, 
or persuading, or carrying awav, or sending out of this 
Territory, any slave beloiising to another, with intent to 
procure or effect the freedom of ^uch slave, or with intent 
to deprive the owner thereof of the services of such slave, 
he shall be adju(%ed suiliy of grand larceny, and, on 
conviction thereof, shall suffer death. or be imprisoned at 
hard labor for not less than ten years.' 

" A person who, by a Pro-Slavery pacVed jary. is con- 
victed of aiding inpersuadintroul of the Territory a slave 
belonging to another, is to suffer at least twice as severe a 
penally as he who is convicted of committing the vilest 
outrage that the mind of man can conceive of on the per- 
son of your wife, sister, or daughter ! Nay, the contrast 
is still stronger. The jury, in the first instance, are au- 
thorized even to inflict the punishment of death — in the lat- 
ter, see page 208, the penalty is ' not less than five years.' 
Such is tie contrast in Kansas between the protection of 
a wife's or daughter's honor and happiness, and that 
which is thrown as a protecting aegis over the property 
of the slaveholder! 

"Again, on page 208, you will find that the ruffian who 
commits malicious mayhem, that is, without provocation, 
knocksyoudown in the street, cats offyour nose and ears, 
and plucks out your eyes, is punished ' not less than five 
nor more than ten years;' the same degree of punishment 
that is meted out in section seven of the above act, page 
605, on a person who should aid, or assist, or even 'har- 
bor,' an escaped slave I 

" On page 209, you will find that the man who sits at 
your bedside, when you are prostrated by disease, and, 
taking advantage of your confidence and helplessness, 
administers 7)owon to you, but whereby death does not 
happen to ensue, is to be punished ' not less than five nor 
more than ten yeais,' though it is murder in the heart, if 
not the deed. And this is precisely the snme penalty as 
that prescribed by the eleventh section (quoted in my re- 
marks above on the five violations of the Constitution) 
against one who but brings into the Territory any book, 
paper, or handbill, containing any 'sentiment' 'calcula- 
ted,' in the eyes of a Pro-Slavery jury, to make slaves 
' disorderly.' The man who takes into the Territory Jef- 
ferson's ' Notes on Virginia ' can be, under this law, hur- 
ried away to '.he chain-gang, and manacled, arm to arm, 
with the murderous poisoner. 

''On page 210, the kidnapping mid confinement of a. free 
white person, for any purpcse. even, if a man, to sell him 
into slavery, or, if a woman, for a still baser purpose, is 
to be punished ' not exceeding ten years.' Dfcoying and 
enticing a^ay a child under twe;ve years of age from iis 
parents, ' not less than six months and not exceeding five 
years.' 'BuX decoying and enticing (mark the similarity 
of the language I) a slave from his master is punished by 
death, or confinement not less than ten years. Here is 
the section, page 604 : 

"'Sec. 4 If any person shall entice, decoy or carry 
away out of this Territory, any slave belonging to anoth- 
er, with intent to deprive theownerthereof of the services 
of such slave, nr with intent to effect or procure the 
freedom of such slave, he shall be adjudged guilty of 



12 



grand larceny, and, on conviction thereof, shall svjffer 
DEATH, or be unprisoned at hard labor for not less than ten 
years.'' '■' 

And .fifhl^, this Constitution, section three, 
article ten, expressly empowers the Legislature, 
, besides poll taxes, income taxes, and uniform 
taxation on property of all kinds, to levy addi- 
tional taxes on " all persons pursuing any occu- 
pation, trade, or profession." Under this, the gen- 
tleman or the sluggard, who is too wealthy or 
too lazy to work, is to be exempt from this tax 
on industry, while the mechanic, the laborer, the 
manufacturer — in a word, the men who earn 
their living by the sweat of their brow — are to 
pay a tax for so doing, over and above all the 
other taxes which they share in common with 
their fellow-citizens of every degree. Before I 
will vote to ratify or endorse so shameless and 
insulting a discrimination against the free labor- 
ers and working men of Kansas, my tongue shall 
palsy in my mouth. Let gentlemen on the other 
side, who insist that we cannot look behind the 
Constitution to see how it was formed or adopted, 
shut their eyes, if they can, to this unrepublican 
provision which stares on them from its face. 

Nor is this all. The Lecompton delegates ap- 
peared as anxious to rob the United States of 
their lands in the Territory as they had the peo- 
ple of Kansas of their rights. And they have 
sent us an ordinance declaring that, to induce 
the new State to yield the right she claims of 
taxing the unsold Government lands within her 
borders, four sections out of each township, 
instead of the usual number of one, must be 
given her for schools ; all the salt, gold, silver, 
and lead mines ; seventy-two sections for a col- 
lege ; and an enormous railroad grant, besides, of 
alternate sections of land, for a breadth of 
twenty-four miles wide, through the Territory 
from east to west, and another of the same 
extent from north to south. It is well known 
that this wholesale "land-grab" would kill the 
Lecompton Constitution in Congress, if coupled 
with it here ; and hence the President has sent 
it to us in a separate form from the main body of 
the Constitution itself; and the Senate report 
says : 

"Tlie commiuee do not approve the ordinance accom- 
pyin? the Corstitution, and report against its allowance ; 
hut they do not regard it as any part of the Constitution. 
nor willits approval or disapproviil by Congress afTeC 
the validity of that Constitution, if the State be admitted 
into the Union as recommended." 

The friends of this Lecompton fraud cannot, 
however, rid themselves of this undesirable hand- 
iwork of the usurpers. I shall prove that it is 
part and parcel of the Constitution, inseparable 
from it, and will be ratified fully and unequivo- 
cally if the State is admitted. For — 

1. It is part of the proffer made by the framers 
of the Lecompton Constitution, on which they 
agree to come into the Union. * 

2. It was framed by a body whose only author- 
ity was to prepare a Constitution. 

But still higher and more indisputable author- 
ity is the positive testimony of the chief conspir- 
ator, their own witness, John Calhoun, Pres- 
ident of the Convention and bearer of the Con- 
stitution, whose official certificate they are, by 



their own argument, " estopped " from looking 
behind. I quote this certificate, attached to the 
ordinance, from page 48, Senate report: 

'• The within is a IrDe and perfect copy of the ordinance 
adopted by the Constitution'! Convention ai:d suumitted 
ASPAKT OF THE Constitution by the JJoNTKSTtoN whi h 
assembled at jL.ecom|>lun on the 5lh day of Sepii-mber, A. 
D. 1657. "( CALHOUN. 

" President Coiislitnlional Convention. 

" Lecompton, Kansas Territory, January 14, 18.5S." 

"Submitted as j^iart of the Constitution by the 
Convention." Gentlemen, can you escape that? 
Your Senate committee, in the teeth of this, and 
to avoid saddling this extra weight on your con- 
sciences, may say, " they do not jegard it as any 
part of the Constitution." But the Lecompton 
Convention declares that it is. Ps President and 
mouthpiece certifies most unequivocally that it 
is. Nay, more : he says it was part of the Con- 
stitution which was submitted by the Convention. 
It has been ratified by the people, therefore, ex- 
actly as much as any other part. It is of as 
much validity as any other section or article. 
You cannot, you say, vary in the slightest degree 
from the action of the Convention, not even to 
consult the popular will, not even to adopt the 
Constitution, subject to its satisfactory ratifica- 
tion hereafter. Then you cannot vary their prof- 
fer to you. You cannot accept part of the Con- 
stitution, and reject part. The ordinance is declar- 
ed, in an official certificate of the President of the 
Convention which framed it, to be " part of the 
Constitution ; " and you will be compelled, there- 
fore, when you strike down the rights of the 
people of Kansas, to strike, at the same time, a 
heavy blow at the rights and interests of your 
constituents there, and to sanction a land-theft 
that, uncoupled from this model Constitution, 
would not command five votes in this body. 

I have not time to notice other provisions 
equally objectionable, but which have been al- 
ready widely criticised and condemned ; and I 
must hasten to another branch of the discussion. 

The report of the majority of the select com- 
mittee of this House, as published by Mr. Ste- 
phens, of Georgia, insists that no farther ena- 
bling act was necessary to authorize the forma- 
tion of a State Constitution than the original 
Kansas-Nebraska law itself. In order not to do 
him injustice, I quote his exact language : 

"Another objection of the same class is, that no ena- 
bling act was passed by Congress; or, in other words, 
that the Legi.^l^ture of Kansas did not have the le-^al 
right to call the Convention that formod the Consiilutio". 
Thi^ obje«tion is equally untenable both on principle and 
authority. The power to call a Convention to form a 
State Constitution is clearly within the 'rightful sub- 
jects' of legislation granted in the organic act." 

Others in debate, in both branches of Congress, 
have deduced the argument that a Congressional 
enabling act was unnecessary, because of the 
following language in another section of the 
Kansas-Nebraska bill : 

" And when admitted as a State or Slates, the said Ter- 
ritory, or any portion of the same, shall be received into 
the Union with or without Slavery, as their CoiistilutioH 
may prescribe at the time of their admission." — United 
States Laios, vol. Ill, p. 2s3. 

But these gentlemen, perhaps, forget that pre- 
cisely the same argument would authorize Utah 
to demand admission without ai-y previous ena- 



13 



bling act. The language of her organic act, on 
this point, is exactly the same as that of Kansas, 
and I copy it here to prove the fact : 

"And, when adtnitled as a Slate, llie said Territory, or 
any potlion of iliesame, shall be received iulo tlie Union 
with or without Slavery, as their Constitution may pre- 
scribe at the lime of their admission."— l/'/iifed States 
Laics, vol. 9, p. 433. 

But I prefer to meet the gentlemau from Geor- 
gia on his own ground, -where he finds the power, 
as above quoted from his report, in the follow- 
ing section of the organic act : 

"Sec. 24. That lite lesfislative power of the Territory 
shall extend lo itll rigliiful sulijec s of le-islalion, con- 
sistent with the Cons itutioii ol the Limed Stales anO tlie 
provisions of this aci.""— Unittd Slatis Lau-x, vol. 10, p. 2;5 

Passing over the question -whether the over- 
throw of the Territorial Government established 
by Congress is a " rightful subject of legisla- 
tion, consistent with the provisions of this act " 
-which established it, I reply to the gentleman 
from Georgia, that Utah has precisely the same 
authority, in the following section of her organic 
act: 

" Sec. G. The legislative power of the Territory shall 
extend to all righilul subjects of legislation, consistent 
■with the Consiitulion oi the United Slates and the pro- 
visions of this act.-" — United Siatts Laics, vol. 9, p. 434. 

Do the gentleman from Georgia, and the other 
prominent champions of the Administration, dare 
to stand by their own argument, when applied to 
the Territory of Utah V Will they maintain, 
while asking us for appropriations tor the army 
-which is to assist in sustaining and upholding 
the new Territorial ofiBcers there, that the whole 
Territorial Government itself can be superseded 
or trammelled by the spontaneous formation of a 
State Constitution in Utah, and the Lecompton- 
like election, before even the instrument itself is 
submitted to our inspection, of a Governor, State 
officers. Judiciary, and Legislature? And yet, 
the language of the two acts being identical on 
the very point where he finds the authority for 
Kansas, he must acknowledge its fallacy, or con- 
cede a license to Utah utterly destructive of the 
national authority in that rebellious Territory. 

I leave the gentleman from Georgia to select 
whichever horn of this dilemma he chooses, and 
ask attention to the two following extracts from 
the speeches of distinguished advocates of Le- 
compton upon this floor. 

The gentleman from Mississippi, [Mr. Lamar,] 
in his speech on the 18th of January, lays down 
the following proposition : 

"The peop'e act in their sovereign capacity when 
they elect delegates; and the delesates thus elected and 
convened are, for all practical purposes, identical with 
the people. Sir, I take higher grounds. 1 hold that the 
highest embodiment of sovereignty, the most imposing 
political assemblage known to our Consiitulion and laws, 
is a convention of the people legally assembled, not en 
masse — for such an assemblage is unknown in our repre- 
sentative system — but by their delegates, legally elected. 
When such a body, with no declared limiialion upon 
their powers, are deputed lo form a Constitution, and 
they execute their trust, the Constiiutioii. ipso facto, be- 
comes the supreme laiv of the land, unquestionable and un- 
changeable by any power on earth, save that which or- 
dained it." « # * 

" It [Kansas] is no longer a Territory of thefe United 
States. She has, by your own authority and permission, 
thrown ofl"ihe habiliments of Territoriil dependence, and 



stand* row a State, clothed with all the attiibuies and 
powers of aStaiCj and asks admission as an equal in this 
noble Confederation of sovereignties. Vou may reject 
her applicwiion, if you will ; but it will be at your own 
peril. To ranand her to her Territorial condition you can- 
not, any more ihan you can roll back to thtir hidden 
sources the waters of the Alississippi. Kansas is a sf pa- 
role, organiztd. living i^tate. wiih all the nerves and arie- 
ries of life in full development and vigorous acii'/ity. 
Between your laws and her people she can interpose the 
broad ar.d radiant shield of Slate fovereignty, and may 
laugh lo scorn your enabling acts." 

The gentleman from Alabama, [Mr. Shorteu,] 
just a month later, declared himself also as fol- 
lows : 

"When the Kansas and Nebraska bill was passed, 
this doctrine of ihe right of tlie people in the J'erntory to 
establi-h a slave or a iree State, ano be admiiied inio 
the Union free from all Congressional interference, was 
adoptrd as a fundamental principle. That bill declares 
that Kansas, as well as Nebraska, has the right of admis- 
sion into the Union as a sovereign Siaie, with or without 
Slavery, according lo the legally-expressed will of the 
inajoriiy of Iter people. Kansas to-day prestnis herself 
al the doi rs of ihi< Hall vi'iih her Consuiutioii, and de- 
mands admission into the Union." ♦ # ♦ 

'• If the organic act establishing a'Terriioriid Govern- 
ment for Kansas was, as I contend, an enabling act, then 
she is toda\ a sovereign, independent Stale, and the Feder- 
al Territorial officers should be instantly wiihdraicn. She is 
a free, independent, sovereign State, outside oi Ihe Union, 
and by the consent of Congress." 

These, sir, are bold sentiments, daringly ex- 
pressed. But when you apply to them the 
touchstone of Utah, their monstrous character, 
their fatal results, are plainly exhibited to all 
men. Even their authors themselves would 
shrink from carrying them out. No more danger- 
ous blow could be wielded at the authority of 
the Federal Government in our Territories than 
this. Endorse them by your ratification of the 
Lecompton Constitution, for which they are the 
chief argument, and you, gentlemen of the op- 
posite side of the House, will be responsible for 
the consequences in the other Territory which 
you are striving to force back to its allegiance. 
In the path that these gentlemen have marked 
out for him, Brigham Young can walk, and 
doubtless will. With precisely the same ena- 
bling act that Kansas has, a vote of the people 
could be at once taken on the propriety of form- 
ing a State Constitution ; an election of delegates 
to a Constitutional Convention ordered by a 
unanimous vote of the Kansas Legislature, even 
over the Governor's veto, as the Lecompton act 
itself was; a Constitution framed, fair and re- 
publican on its/ace; the whole completed within 
a very few months ; and if Congress rejected it, 
the rulers of Utah could tell you, in the language 
of Mr. Lamar, that they are "no longer a Terri- 
tory of the United States ; " that " you cannot re- 
mand them to their Territorial condition ; " that 
" between your laws and her people she will in- 
terpose the broad and radiant shield of State 
sovereignty;" and, in the language of Mr. 
SuoRTKR, she could declare herself" a sovereign, 
independent State," and could demand that " the 
Federal Territorial oflicers should be instantly 
withdrawn." 

Do you say in reply, gentlemen on the other 
side, that these are speeches of only two mem- 
bers of your party, and do not bind the whole? 
I will give you, in addition, the even weightier 
declarations of the authorized exponents of your 



14 



party, the organs of the Senate and House com- 
mittees on this subject, to show you to what 
arguments even your champions are compelled, 
in their attempts to vindicate this Lecompton 
Constitution. 

The Senatorial Committee on Territories close 
their report with the following summing up of 
their argument: 

" [ii conclusion, this committee is of opinion, that when 
a Constuutioaofa iiewl>-formtd State, created out of our 
own territory, is presented to Congress for admission into 
the Union, it is no part o( the duiy or privilege of Congress 
either lo afjirovt or disapprove the Conslituiion i'self, and 
its various provisions, or any of them, but simply to see 
whether it lie the legal Coiisluaiion of the new Stale ; 
whether it be republican in form; whether the boundaries 
proposed be admissible; and whether ihe number of in- 
habiiaits be sufficieai lo justify independent Slate organi- 
zations." 

And the gentleman from Georgia, in his report 
from the select committee of this body, also de- 
clares : 

" When a new State presents a Constilution for admis- 
sion, Congress ha^ no more power lo inquire into tue 
manner of its auoptiou than the matter of its substance. 
The matter caniioi oe inquired into furiher than to see 
that it is republican inform; and the mude aiiu manner 
of its adoption cannot lie inquired into only so far as to 
see thai it has been ibrmeu in such a way as the people 
have legally estaOlished for themselves.''' 

To such extraordinary positions do the neces- 
sities of this extraordinary case unwittingly hur- 
ry its ablest defenders. We, on the contrary, 
who do not believe that Congress is so powerless, 
so bereft of legislative discretion, so tongue-tied, 
that it has not even "the privilege" of saying 
"no," when a State asks lor admission, would 
meet the application of Utah, did she come here 
with a Constitution republican in form, with 
proper boundaries and sufficient people, as we 
meet this Lecompton fraud — by the declaration 
that, in the exercise of our power and authority, 
we decline admitting you into the partnership of 
States, and remand you, for reasons good and 
sufficient to ourselves, to your Territorial con- 
dition. You, gentlemen, however, will be "estop- 
ped '■' by the doctrines you have deliberately 
endorsed ; and having ratified the humiliating 
declaration of the Senate's report, that it is 
neither your duty, nor even your " privilege," to 
look behind a Constitution fair on its face, even 
if you know it to be a "whited sepulchre," you 
will have to welcome Utah into the Confederacy, 
as the first fruits of your Lecompton doctrine of 
1858, with Brigham Young and Heber C. Kim- 
ball in your National Senate, to assist you in ap- 
plying it to still other Territories of this Union. 

Imagine, sir, George Washington sitting in the 
White House ; that noble patriot, whose whole 
career is a brilliant illustration of honor and pu- 
rity in high places; and who doubts that if such 
a Constitution as this had been submitted to him 
for his sanction, he would have spurned from his 
door with contempt and scorn the messenger who 
bore it? Or, ask yourself what would have been 
the indignant answer of Thomas Jeflferson, who 
proclaimed, as the battle-cry of the Revolution, 
that great truth enshrined in the Declaration 
which has made his name immortal, and which 
scattered to the winds the sophistries and tech- 
nicalities of the royalists of our land, that " all 



Governments derive their just powers from the 
consent of the governed ;" not the implied con- 
sent of enforced submission, but the actual, un- 
deniable, unquestioned consent of the freemen 
who are to bear its burdens and enjoy its bless- 
ings. U a messenger had dared to enter the 
portals of the White House when that stern 
old man of iron will, Andrew Jackson, of Ten- 
nessee, lived within it, and ask him to give his 
endorsement and approval, the sanction of his 
personal character and official influence, to a 
Constitution reeking with fraud, which its fra- 
mers were seeking to enforce on a people who 
protested and denounced and loathed and repu- 
diated it, and to go down to history as its volun- 
tary advocate and champion, that messenger, I 
will warrant, would have remembered the tor- 
rent of rebuke with which he would have beea 
overwhelmed, till the latest hour of his life. 

I turn gladly, joyfully, from the consideration 
of the extraordinary arguments to which I have 
alluded, to a brighter, happier picture, if you will 
only allow it to be painted. The President com- 
plains that he is tired of Kansas troubles, and 
desires peace. How easy is it to Jae obtained? 
Not by lorcing, with despotic power and hireling 
soldiery, a Constitution, hated and spurned by the 
people, upon a Territory that will rise in arms 
against it; not by surrendering the power and 
authority of an infant State into the hands of a 
pitiful minority of its citizens, who, by oppress- 
ive laws, and persistently fraudulent elections, 
have continued to wield the power which a shame- 
less usurpation originally gave them ; but by 
simply asking the people of Kansas, under your 
own authority, if you insist on rejecting the vote 
authorized by their Legislature, the simple and 
yet essential question, " Do you desire Congress 
to ratify the Lecompton Constitution, or the 
new Constitution now being framed?" How 
easy is the pathway to peace, when Justice is the 
guide! How rugged and devious the jiathway 
of error, when Wrong lights the road of her fol- 
lowers with her lurid torch, I have endeavored 
to show. 

The people of Kansas, through every possible 
avenue which has not been closed by their en- 
slavers, have remonstrated to you against this 
great wickedness. By ten thousand majority at 
the polls, by the unanimous protest of their Leg- 
islature, by public meetings, by their newspa- 
per press, and by the voice of their Delegate 
upon this floor, overwhelmingly elected less than 
six months past, they ask you to repudiate this 
fraud. Dragged here, bound hand and foot by 
a Government office-liolder ; who, besides draw- 
ing his pay as Surveyor General, acts also as 
President of the Lecompton Convention ; who 
becomes, by its insolent discarding of all your 
Territorial officers, as well as the people's, the 
recipient of all the returns, fraudulent as well as 
genuine, and the canvasser of the votes — she ap- 
peals to you to release her from the grasp of this 
despot and dictator, and to let her go free. In 
the language of an eloquent and gifted orator of 
my own State, I say, " When she comes to us, let 
it be as a willing bride, and not as a fettered and 
manacled slave." 



APPENDIX. 



LECOMPTOI VIE¥S 01 PREE LABOR. 



Extracts from the Speech of Senator Hammond, of South Carolina, 
in advocacy of the Lecompton Constitution, and in reply to Hon. 
William H. Seward. Revised by himself. Delivered in the 
United States Senate, March 4, 1858. — See Ap. to Cong. Glohe^ 
pages 69 to 71. 



"If this was a minority Constitution I do not 
know that that would be an objection to it. 
Constitutions are made for minorities. Perhaps 
minorities ought to have the right to make Con- 
stitutions, for they are administered by major- 
ities." 

" la all social systems there must be a class to 
do the menial duties, to perform the drudgery of 
life. That is, a class requiring but a low order 
of intellect and but little skill. Its requisites are 
vigor, docility, fidelity. Such a class you must 
have, or you would not have that other class 
which leads progress, civilization, and refine- 
ment. It constitutes the very mud-sill of society 
and of political government; and you might as 
well attempt to build a house in the air, as to 
build either the one or the other, except on this 
mud-sill." 

"The diflference between us is, that our slaves 
are hired for life and well compensated ; there is 
no starvation, no begging, no want of employ- 
ment, among our people, and not too much em- 
ployment, either. Yours are hired by the day, 
not cared for, and scantily compensated, which 
may be proved in the most painful manner, at 
any hour in any street in any of your large 
towns. * * * Our slaves are black, of 
another and inferior race. The status in which 
we have placed them is an elevation. They are 
elevated from the condition in which God first 
created them, by being made our slaves. None 
of that race on the whole face of the globe can 
be compared with the slaves of the South. They 
are happy, content, unaspiring, and utterly inca- 
pable, from intellectual weakness, ever to give 
us any trouble by their aspirations. Yours are 
white, of your own race ; you are brothers of 
one blood. They are your equals in natural en- 
dowment of intellect, and they feel galled by 
their degradation. Our slaves do not vote. We 
give them no political power. Yours do vote, 



and being the majority, they are the depositaries 
of all your political power." 

" Transient and temporary causes have thus far 
been your preservation. The great West has 
been open to your surplus population, and your 
hordes of semi-barbarian immigrants, who are 
crowding in year by year. They make a great 
movement, and you call it progress. Whither? 
It is progress ; but it is progress towards Vigilance 
Committees. The South have sustained you iq 
a great measure. You are our factors. You 
bring and carry for us. One hundred and fifty 
million dollars of our money passes annually 
through your hands. Much of' it sticks ; all of it 
assists to keep your machinery together and in 
motion. Suppose we were to discharge you ; sup- 
pose we were to take our business out of your 
hands; we should consign you to anarchy and 
poverty. You complain Okf the rule of the South : 
that has been another cause that has preserved 
you. We have kept the Government conservative 
to the great purposes of Government. We have 
placed her, and kept her, upon the Constitution ; 
and that has been the cause of your peace and 
prosperity. The Senator from New York says 
that that is about to be at an end ; that you intend 
to take the Government from us ; that it will 
pass from our hands. Perhaps what he says is 
true ; it may be ; but do not forget — it can never 
be forgotten — it is written on the brightest page 
of human history — that we, the slaveholders of the 
South, took our country in her infancy, and, 
after ruling her for sixty out of the seventy years 
of her existence, we shall surrender her to you 
without a stain upon her honor, boundless in 
prosperity, incalculable in her strength, the won- 
der and the admiration of the world. Time will 
show what you will make of her; but no time 
can ever diminish our glory or your responsi- 
bility." 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



